Wednesday, 26 May 2010

Three major TV series ended within a few days of each other here in the UK: Ashes to Ashes, The Prisoner and Lost. I followed all three with intense interest and eagerly the final episodes of each. I expected mysteries to be solved and plotlines to be resolved, but only Ashes to Ashes delivered these, as far as I am concerned. The ending to The Prisoner was barely understandable, and only then if you're willing to accept vague statements and use your own guesswork as to what anything might mean. There again, I only wasted 6 hours of my life on the programme, so it's not a huge loss.

But, well, there was the ending to Lost. Time and money and effort and patience was willingly drained from it viewers over 6 damned seasons. We loved the programme and put a huge amount of emotional investment into watching it. The ending delivered some resolutions, but nowhere near enough as far I'm concerned.

I know that some people will argue that the ending is artistic, open to individual interpretation, sophisiticated blah blah blah but I feel cheated. There are mysteries that will now never be explained: the significance of Hurley's numbers, for example. They've thrown intriguing puzzles at us through our TV set and now won't help us clear up their confused mess. It's thoughless, untidy and leaves us dissatisfied.

Give me a good piece of popular fiction with a proper resolution that means something, that is clear and easy to grasp. Give me the ending to something like Watchmen (the comic, not the film for god's sake) where mystery and intrigue and suspense are finely crafted and brought to an astounding, clear resolution (despite the squid, which I really love by the way).

Endings should resolve things and leave us satisfied. What do you think?